Multiples of One
by 0TerrorInABox0
Summary: A series of one-shots/drabbles with a focus FFVII characters. Characters involved and ratings will vary.
1. Connect the Dots (Rufus)

Multiples of One:

_T__his is going to be a collection of one-shots (multiple stories; each one chapter, if you want to know what the title means). They will mostly be for practice/getting experience with writing and for when I need a break from writing my multi-chaptered fic. Most of them are probably going to be focused on Rufus Shinra (some with just him, some with pairings), because he's my favorite. ^^ But there's always the possibility that I might end up writing something for other characters in the future. I'm going to try to keep these about 500-ish words but I'll keep it at a limit of no more than 1000 words per one-shot. I have a tendency to write longer chapters and one-shots, so I'd like to try writing something short for a change._

_So, without further ado: the first one-shot! ^^_

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**Connect the Dots**

Connect the Dots. It was a game that Rufus remembered playing as a child. You started with dot #1 and connected the dots in numerical order until you reached the highest number; then when you looked at the outline that was created, it formed a picture.

It had been a slightly amusing game but its simplicity had made him lose interest quickly. On the surface, the game seemed to have had very little value in preparing him for the future. Never in his life did he imagine that mastering the core concepts of such a simple children's game would help him achieve his greatest goals**.**

Yet there he was, sitting in his office at his desk, engaged in what he found to be a very elaborate game of Connect the Dots. Except this time, besides just connecting the dots, he was also responsible for placing them in the correct positions; and instead of numbers, the dots were now labeled by key words and names.

#AVALANCHE, #Funding, #Elfé, #Turks, #Veld, #Fuhito, #Rocket Town, etc, etc until he reached the last dot: his Old Man.

If he managed to place all the "dots" in the correct positions and connect them in a logical order, the outline would form a clear, flawless picture of a new age for the Shinra Electric Power Company, with himself as its President.

A devious smirk spread across the young Vice President's lips as he sat back in his office chair and dialed a number into his PHS. Taking the Presidency for himself was going to be as easy as a game of Connect the Dots.

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**Notes:** Wow, that was short. I am not used to looking at such a small finished product. XD

Setting is Before Crisis, in case you didn't know. If you are wondering where I got the idea for this particular one-shot, it was a prompt in an old drabble-fest I found. I saw it and was inspired to jot down this little drabble.

Feel free to review if you so desire. :)

I have a few other one-shots that I'm in the middle of working on right now, hopefully they will be finished soon.


	2. Left Handed (Two Guns)

_Setting: before "Before Crisis" _  
_Character(s): Two Guns (Rafe) - I got attached to that name when I read the Before Crisis translation on Gunshot Romance_  
_Basic Summary: The origin of Two Guns' ambidextrous-ness_

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"The fuck you always do stuff with your left hand for?" Rafe's father pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket as he glared across the table at his 4 year old son who was eating his cereal using his left hand.

Rafe looked innocently up at his father and back down at his cereal, putting his spoon down on the table he gave a small shrug. "It's just easy with that one."

"It's just easy with that one… " The capodecina echoed his son's words with a disapproving tone as he lit his cigarette.

"Damiano, he's just a little kid." Rafe's mother interrupted from the other side of the kitchen. It was just habit by now. Countless previous attempts to get her son's father to recognize and follow what to her seemed like basic common sense had fallen on deaf ears, and there was no doubt in her mind that this time would be no different.

"He's a fucking little mancino." Damiano took a drag on his cigarette. "Nothin' but bad luck."

Rafe looked down at his breakfast ashamedly, although he wasn't sure what using your left hand had to do with bad luck, or even what bad luck really was.

"You don't actually believe that, do you?" Hayleigh raised an eyebrow in disbelief and turned toward the capo, but a familiar look from Damiano made her turn her attention back to the stove.

Reluctantly, Rafe picked up his spoon with his other hand resumed eating his cereal, trying his hardest to hide the clumsiness that came with using his right hand.

Damiano snickered, "Look at 'em tryin' to eat."

Hayleigh paused her stirring for a moment and let out a soft sigh of mild irritation. "Well what do you expect him to do? You yell at him for using his left hand so he tries to make you happy, and you laugh at him."

Damiano ignored his son's mother's comment and continued his condescending laughter at his son's attempts at eating right handed.

"You wanna use your right hand insteada your left one?" Damiano asked, the joyously sinister expression that had been plastered on the capo's face just moments before quickly disintegrated back into its usual cold, insensitive one.

Rafe looked up and nodded eagerly.

Damiano got up and left the kitchen, returning shortly with a black hand wrap. "Gimme your hand."

Rafe gave his hand to his father and looked the other way, wincing in discomfort as Damiano tightly tied the wrap all the way up to his knuckles.

"There. You keep that on until you break that little habit of yours, got it? I don't wanna see you doin' nothin' with that left hand anymore."

The four year old nodded and rubbed his wrapped hand with his free one under the table as his father stood up and directed his attention back to his cigarette.

"I _really_ don't think you need t-"

"Nobody asked you...how the hell much longer is that gonna take?" The Corneo Family capo nodded in the direction of his breakfast.

"You've got about two minutes…." Hayleigh responded through gritted teeth, trying unsuccessfully to hide her annoyance. Returning her attention again to her cooking, she pushed the ever-gnawing question of how much longer she would be able to put up with living with her son's father back to the back of her mind, and tried to ignore the diminishing patience in her heart.

"Besides, he likes it. Dontcha kiddo?"

Rafe looked up at Damiano and smiled, receiving a rough yet playful hair rustle as a reward for his agreement. The hand wrap was uncomfortable, painful even, but the look of approval on his father's face made it worth it. It was a look Rafe didn't see too often and it made him beam with pride to know he had made his father pleased with him. It wasn't an easy thing to do, which meant that he must have really accomplished something.

Rafe's mother looked over her shoulder at her son, as much as it pained her to give in to Damiano it was hard to ignore the increasingly obvious evidence that she was fighting a losing battle. Despite his father's verbal and sometimes even physical cruelty towards him, the four year old persisted in looking up to his father as his biggest role model. It was just what Damiano wanted: the chance to manipulate and mold someone into his own image, a way to preserve his power, and the fear and cruelness he had worked so hard to make associated with the name Vadini long after he was no longer able to do so himself, whether by death or old age. Guilt surged through her at the idea of going back home to her parents and leaving her son behind to be raised by his father's influence alone, but she couldn't help but wonder if things would end up much differently if she stayed; and the abuse the capo put her through on a regular basis was starting to take its toll.

Taking his spoon in his right hand, Rafe started again at his cereal, this time with new determination to make himself learn how to eat with his right hand just as good as he could with his left… no, even better than he could with his left.  
He'd show his father he was no mancino, whatever that was.

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**bang!** **bang!** **bang!**

Rafe smiled with satisfaction, looking across the mess of cement, trash, and junk that made up his backyard at the target that now sported three bullet holes straight through the middle. It had taken a few years, but his right-handed aim with the death instrument of his choice was finally near perfection. Rafe let out a yawn and grabbed another magazine from the small rusty table next to him and reloaded his gun. He had gotten up at 5:30 that morning to deliver a package for his father and although he was by no means regularly a morning person, there was something about doing a job for his father that energized him and made him feel alive; and there was no way he could go back to sleep now. At 8:00 in the morning Wall Market was just starting to think about waking up. The sun was peeping through the cracks in the Plate, illuminating patches of dust in the air here and there and the early risers among Wall Market's inhabitants were beginning to stumble out of their various humble abodes ranging from trashcans to dilapidated houses to reluctantly greet another day.

With a new magazine in place, Rafe was about to reposition himself for another round of target practice when his gaze fell on the old black hand wrap he had used as a kid, now covered in a layer of dust and spider webs, lying under a chair nearby. Suddenly an idea caused him to pause and look over his shoulder at his house, then over at his left hand, then at his gun.

_"The old man should still be in bed..." _He thought to himself. It wouldn't hurt to give it a try, just once, just out of curiosity to see how he would do. Rafe transferred his handgun to his left hand and aimed for the target.

**bang! ** **bang! bang! **

Two slightly too low and off to the right, and one straight through the middle. Rafe was delighted. _"Not too damn bad for a first round."_

Excited about his natural left-handed talent, his eye suddenly fell one of his father's handguns laying on an old lawn chair nearby. Rafe grabbed the gun with his free hand and, with a gun now in each hand, began rapidly firing at a row of empty beer bottles he had set up, grinning like a kid in a candy shop.

"Do you have any idea how early it is!?" At the first sound of the back door bursting open Rafe flung the gun from his left hand with an exaggerated hand motion, as if it had burned him.

Damiano, who was still only in his pajama pants walked out onto the back patio and looked over his son perspicaciously, dark rings under his eyes from working late the night before. "What the hell were you doing?"

Rafe set his father's handgun down on the table beside him and returned Damiano's glare with an emotionless stare. "Couldn't sleep."

"Not that, what were you doin' with the _guns_?"

Rafe shrugged carelessly. "Just messin' around."

"Yeah? You were shootin' at empty bottles just now, right?"

"Yeah."

"Hows about you set up some more and show me how well you're doin'. Seeing as how you like to practice so much you wake up the whole Sector in the morning, you should be pretty damn good... inconsiderate little fuck."

Rafe found some more bottles from the junk mounds that bordered the back of his cement yard and set them up as targets. Walking back to where his father was waiting, Rafe grabbed his gun off the ground with his right hand and readied himself to shoot another round.

Suddenly his father's hand extended out into the left side of his vision, holding the gun Rafe had set on the table in insistent offering. The teen looked in the direction the gun had appeared to find the knowing glare of his father, who made no attempt to hide his irritation at his son's attempt to play him for a blind fool.

Rafe accepted the gun with his left, took a breath, and readjusted himself to shoot both guns. First impressions were important to his father and if he screwed this up, in addition to the annoyance of being ridiculed about wasting time and bullets, it would do some damage to how ready Damiano considered him to be to do some real work; something Rafe had worked so hard to try to build up.

He could barely hear the sounds of his gunfire over his pounding heartbeat, and when it was over, Rafe wasn't sure his heart was beating anymore at all: he had missed two of the bottles. Slowly he turned his gaze to where his father was standing with one arm across his chest, the other vertical so that his hand rested under his chin; with only a blank stare on his face directed towards nowhere in particular.

In an attempt to provoke some sort of response, Rafe clicked the on safety on his father's gun, flipped it around in his hand and offered it to him, handle-side forward. Damiano waved his hand towards Rafe in a 'forget it' motion. "I needta get a new one anyways." And without another word he walked back into the house.

Rafe could barely contain his excitement. He looked down at his new gun, let a grin spread across his face and bit his lip to stop himself from any further celebration that might irritate his old man and make him change his mind. He had done it. While Rafe guessed his father was far from impressed, he had at least been able to make him see some promise in the chance to let him develop his skill as a double wielding gunman.

A grumble from the teen's stomach suddenly interrupted the silent, inner celebration of his victory to remind him that he still hadn't eaten anything yet. Setting the safety on his old gun, he stuck his weapons in his inventory and headed through the back door.

"Supreme Lord High Executioner Damiano! " A man flung the front door open somewhat forcefully and jokingly gestured in accompaniment with the capo's nickname.

Damiano looked up from his seat at the kitchen table in emotionless acknowledgement at his visitor, holding a re-lit, half used cigarette he had just salvaged from a nearby ashtray.

"Today is gonna be a good day." The man smiled and helped himself into the fridge for a beer.

"Yeah?"

"You know all those thank you cards our friendly neighbors a few blocks down have been gettin'?"

"The ones for the funeral bouquets?"

"Yeah and the party favors." The man took a long drink of his beer.

As his father's coworker continued on, Rafe quietly slipped into the freezer to grab a frozen toaster pastry as his breakfast and headed into the living room to watch TV, knowing better than to stick around when Damiano was talking business.

Rafe flipped through the channels; there was never anything good on, his old man being too cheap to pay for cable. Eventually settling on a cheap, action TV-movie, he started in on his toaster pastry. Unable to keep himself occupied with the TV for long, Rafe's thoughts wandered to what he should do with the rest of the day. Practice his shooting? That was a given… then Stevie would probably show up wanting to hang out, or go cause some trouble around town. Rafe smirked, remembering the open air duct entrance his best friend said he had found a few days ago that led into the Honeybee Inn.

"Well let's not take all day about it then." Rafe heard his father say above the babble of the TV commercials. Damiano walked past his son's line of vision with a sense of urgency, heading back to his bedroom and reappearing what seemed like only moments later, dressed and ready for work.

After taking another bite of his breakfast, Rafe glanced to his right and saw that his father had stopped at the end table next to the couch and was quickly loading some extra magazines.

"You comin'?" Damiano glanced up at his son for a moment before returning to loading his magazines.

Almost forgetting to respond, the question having taken him completely by surprise, Rafe managed a firm nod and got up from his seat, took out his guns, and tossed the empty magazines on the couch; trying to look as cold and professional as he could.

Damaino clicked one of the magazines into place in a handgun and tossed a few to Rafe before putting the rest of them in his inventory. The capo nodded towards the direction of the kitchen in a 'let's go' motion and headed off. Rafe clicked a magazine into each of his guns and followed his father, leaving behind his half eaten toaster pastries and plans to find and spy through the Honeybee Inn's dressing room vent for later.

Damiano's coworker, who was leaning back against the kitchen counter, gestured towards Rafe, beer can still in-hand. "What's with the kid?"

"He's comin' with us today." The capo answered in a casual, yet authoritative tone that made no room for further questions or contradictory opinions.

"Oh… well then." The man set his almost finished beer can down beside him on the counter and headed for the door, shooting Rafe a friendly smile that seemed to say 'welcome, kid!' but sent a warning with his eyes for Rafe to keep in mind that that's all he was: a kid; and even though his daddy might be in charge in their little party of three, Rafe should remember his place as an associate: at the bottom of the pecking order.

Rafe returned a small smile of acknowledgement and thought about the man's conversation with his father from earlier. _"He's right,"_ Rafe thought to himself as he followed Damiano out the door, excitement beating in his heart and the shadow of a smirk on his lips. _"today is gonna be a good day."_

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_This one-shot is somewhat of an excerpt from a large fic in my head that will most likely never be written down in its entirety. That being said, I'm not so sure about the quality of this. 0.0 I haven't written in quite a while and I discovered it to be rather hard to write only snippits of a larger story and still make it presentable and interesting for a reader, even though they are in the dark on most of the background and details. Anyway, I figured I might as well submit it since I bothered to finish it. __I'm saddened by the lack of fan works out there for the BC Turks, _and maybe it will make some Two Guns or BC fan out there happy to have more to read... then again maybe not. =D 

_Some Notes:_  
_- capodecina/capo: a leader of a least 10 men in a mafia family_  
_- mancino: when used as a noun means "left-hander"_  
_- associate: someone who works in affiliation with a mafia family but is not an official member_


End file.
